The Moment of Truth
by rachel121
Summary: Looking back at Riddick's start in life - Please read and review


Title: The Moment of Truth  
  
Rating: R for Content  
  
Category: Drama  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the character Richard B Riddick....  
  
Notes: This is an excerpt of a longer story... more to come later, let me know if you like it. Feedback always appreciated, and criticism is always needed.  
  
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"In darkness..." Riddick's normally low voice dropped another octave making it almost impossible to hear him. I was concerned that the drugs given to him would make him incomprehensible. It was necessary to triple the normal dose for a man of his physical build, as he seemed to have a natural resistance to any type of foreign substance to the body. We had been observing him for months now, and this was our first real breakthrough.  
  
"Richard? Where are you?" I kept my voice soft, hoping to verbally prompt him. He was not known as being talkative, and it was hoped that these hypnotic exercises would help us in understanding the mens rhea of the sociopath. It took a moment for him to answer. I looked through the two-way mirror, knowing that my colleagues were recording both digitally as well as making their own personal observations. Riddick moved, and I turned silently to face him again.  
  
"In darkness...," he was clearer now, and I felt myself relax slightly. Now I needed to keep him talking.  
  
"Can you see in the darkness?" This would help determine if the memory was prior to the shine job he had paid a pack of Kools for during his first stay in Slam City.  
  
He shook his head slightly, making a sound with his lips closed.  
  
"Can you hear anything?"  
  
I watched as his eyebrows knit together. "It's dull." I waited, wondering if he would expand on it himself or if I would need to prompt him all the way through. It was better if the patient participated without prompting, but in some cases, like Riddick's, that was nearly impossible.  
  
"Richard? Will you describe it?"  
  
His head tilted to the left, and his face donned a calmer expression, the eyebrows no longer knitted. "It's a woman's voice. But it's like listening through water." He seemed to struggle with the description. I gave him a few moments to add more, but he was silent.  
  
"Richard. Why are listening to this woman, through water? Do you know who she is?"  
  
His lips widened slightly and when he spoke his voice was warmer than we in the Centre had ever heard from him. "My mother. She's my mother. She's singing to me, I can feel her voice as she sings and breathes. I can feel her hands, stroking me through her belly." With long pauses between each revelation, he seemed to be enjoying each memory as it came back to him. I waited a few moments before prompting him to speak again.  
  
"What else do you feel Richard?"  
  
"I feel a wall, a flexible wall. I push at it with my hands and feet. When I push the wall, I feel her hand through it. She pushes back a little, and that's when she sings." A giggle broke clear of his lips, the oddest sound I ever expected to hear from Richard B Riddick. "She thinks I am struggling, but I do it so she will sing." An innocent and childlike grin was lighting lit up Riddick's face, and in his mind, he was in utero.  
  
I could imagine the fury of notes being both scrawled long hand by the traditionalists and rapidly key-stroked by the rest. I strained to listen, not wanting any sounds to break the seclusion Riddick and I had in this room. This was an amazing breakthrough. Not the in utero memories, those had been recorded for the last 500 years. But Riddick's openness, that was outstanding. I refocused on the matter at hand.  
  
"Richard. Can we move ahead? Do you recall when you were born?" The joyful look left him, and his expression became troubled.  
  
"It's harder to move in here. The walls keep pushing at me, and there are strange voices. I can feel hands on my mother, pushing me downward... but I am stuck. I cannot go any farther. He paused, and I was phrasing the next prompt when he continued. "The pushing has stopped. My mother is relaxing and the walls are not squeezing anymore. I can hear her heart slow down, and she is not talking anymore. There are so many voices." He stopped again, the knit of his brows increasing, his hands tightening on the arms of the chair.  
  
"Richard, what happens next?"  
  
"I'm tired. I want to rest. It feels like my brain is shutting down". I suspected that his mother had given birth via caesarian section and each clue was confirming that. "The walls are moving away, and I feel someone pulling me upwards. I am no longer surrounded by the water, it's gone. And it is so bright." His hands released the chair and moved rapidly to shield his eyes, not as an adult would do with their arms, but as an infant would. His fists clenched and shaking as they attempted to protect his eyes from the bright light of his memory.  
  
"Richard, this is a memory, and the light cannot hurt your eyes here." This seemed to relax him and his arms slowly returned to their sides. "What do you feel?"  
  
Riddick sharply sucked air into his lungs, then cried a pitiful cry. "It hurts. It hurts to breathe. The air is so foul and tastes so dirty." Tears began to form along his eyelashes, indicating real pain for the infant Riddick. "I am on a cold table, but the air does not hurt as much anymore. Each breath I take allows me to cry louder. I want them to know how angry I am. I want to be back with my mother." Riddick was shivering, his entire body vibrating minimally at first, but then almost violently as though he were fighting off a severe fever. "So cold."  
  
Noting that his eyes were still clenched tightly shut, I asked him what he could see.  
  
"The light is burning my eyes, I cannot open them." His voice became less infantile and more adult Riddick.  
  
"This is just a memory, Richard, the light cannot hurt your eyes in a memory. Can you try to open them?"  
  
He shook his head tersely, and his hands clenched the arms of the chair once again. For this session Riddick was not restrained, as the hypnosis would be less effective. But now I was beginning to have second thoughts about being locked in a room with a man of impossible strength and seemingly no apparent moral fiber.  
  
"It's alright Richard. Do as you feel comfortable. But if you open your eyes, you may be able to see your mother."  
  
He seemed to consider that, then slowly he relaxed and the lids opened to reveal his shined eyes. The room was darkened to accommodate Riddick's needs, so there was no problem with him seeing. Once both eyes were open, and he was looking around, I redirected him to the ward where he was born.  
  
"What do you see Richard?"  
  
"A man. He has a cloth, and he is wrapping me in it." His violent shivering slowed down and as he continued to speak it stopped all together. "He is moving me. Ohhhhh." his voice rose in a comforting sigh, then diminished. A smile returned to his face, and his eyes shined with joy.  
  
"Richard? You seem happy."  
  
"It's my mother. I can see her. She is so beautiful. She seems to be sleeping, but her eyes are open. Her eyes are the same as mine. She is smiling and talking to me. Her voice is smooth and sweet, all I want to do is look at her." He drifted off into a memory, a half-curved smile on his face.  
  
I was mentally reviewing what I knew of Riddick, and this was not supporting the dumpster story. It sounded like Riddick had been born in a hospital. Time to get a few more answers.  
  
"Richard, Can you tell me what happens next?"  
  
The smile on his face broadened, and he began "I can feel an ache, and my mother feeds me. Her milk is sweet and familiar. I am watching her face, she is smiling, so lovely." He relaxed back into the chair for a moment then sat up abruptly, looking like he was about to spring out of the chair.  
  
"What is it Richard?"  
  
"Her face is filled with fear, and she smells different. Her milk has stopped coming." His face contorted with his own fear. "Someone is grabbing me from her. NO! I will not leave her! I hear him talking, his voice is ugly and brutal."  
  
"Can you tell me what he is saying?"  
  
" 'You lying little bitch! Did you think I would not know?' " Riddick's voice changed as he relayed the words. " 'So you bore me a son... That's good, because you finally did something right. You were a lousy lay, all that screamin and carrying on... if you'd only shut up I wouldn't have hurt you. But no, you had to carry on like someone was killing you.' "Riddick paused, his face flushed. He was hopeless to stop the verbal barrage that he had stored in the back of his memories all this time. " 'Well, now I am going to kill you. I almost got caught because of you, and now that this baby has my DNA, I can't risk that. You need to die and he needs to disappear.' "  
  
"Richard, this is just a memory." He was shaking again, but this time from unadulterated anger. We could not end the session there, it was far too dangerous to the patient and anyone who may might come into contact with him. "Tell me what happened next."  
  
Tears welled in his tightly clenched eyes, and the rest of the story came out. "He spoke to me. 'Kid, you should know that you are the devil's spawn, because I am the devil. Your mother is going to die, and you're going to watch.' " His voice was repeating verbatim the terror of his father, but his face showed fear, anger and loathing. "He killed my mother. He made me watch, he made me... "  
  
"Richard, it is a memory, and she cannot feel the pain. Please continue"  
  
" 'The fourth lumbar down, that's what I call the sweet spot.' Oh God, he's shiving her! He has blood on his hands, and he is licking his finger. 'Tastes a little copperish, but cut it with a bit of peppermint Schnappes...' No!" Riddick began to thrash around, as though his body were bound, probably in bunting. "NO! I don't want to taste her blood! AAARRGHGGGGHHHH!" He began to spit from his mouth, using his hands to claw away at the imaginary blood on his lips and tongue. Although his nails were kept extremely short, he was still able to draw blood.  
  
"Richard, Richard, come back to me... The memory cannot hurt you."  
  
He stopped viciously tearing at his mouth, the tears from his eyes rolling down into the raw scrapes, carrying tiny rivulets of red down his jaw, to drip onto the white shirt.  
  
"Richard. I need you to breathe... And then we need to go back to that memory. Do you think you can do that?"  
  
After a few minutes of deep breathing, he nodded.  
  
"He took me. We were outside, and it was cold. He loosened the blanket around me, and wrapped something around my neck. It was harder to breath. The air seemed to lessen and it was harder to breathe. and my eyes wanted to close. He threw me over something, and I landed on a pile of softness. I can see his face peering over the edge of the wall, his face haloed with light. And then he closed the lid, leaving me in darkness." 


End file.
